Metric takes on Connecticut’s capital venue

After completing a major Canadian tour and reaching the top of Billboard’s Heatseekers chart with their most recent release titled Fantasies, it seemed a little… quaint to have Metric at the Webster Theater in Connecticut’s capital city. Big names usually aren’t so common at the 70 year-old Webster and, for anyone who has been rocked by Metric live before, expectations were high and the crowd was buzzing.

Photo Credit: Chion Wolf

Even though there was plenty of room on the dance floor, the audience took on a surprisingly powerful roar as the lights faded and the band took their spots on stage. The ethereal “Twilight Galaxy” was first up, followed by the more radio-friendly “Help, I’m Alive” and a personal favorite, “Satellite Mind”.

Photo Credit: Chion Wolf

Later in the show came “Collect Call”, which steadied the groove for the growing crowd, followed by “Empty”, during which you could tell the big fans from the casual listeners. The song starts off almost zen-like, and without warning, blasts into a jump-your-sweet-ass-up-and-down rock song, featuring the lyrics “Shake your head, it’s empty, shake your hips, move your feet”, a stark contrast to the more thoughtful opening lines, “there’s no way out, the only way out is to give in / how I love to, how I love to give in”.

Photo Credit: Chion Wolf

When they closed their main set with “Stadium Love”, they rocked it the only way you can rock a song called “Stadium Love”: unforgivably loud with lyrics like “Every living thing / pushed into the ring / fight it out to wow the crowd / guess you thought you could just watch / no one’s getting out”. The crowd bounced and everyone screamed along. For an encore, Metric went back to their third-album roots with “Monster Hospital”, followed by an acoustic version of “Combat Baby” with guitarist and writer, Jimmy Shaw.

Being a proper fan, I saw that their tweet following the concert exclaimed: “Whoa Hartford CT show tonight was off the hook! Out of nowhere!” My sentiment exactly.

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Found a link to your pictures on the Metric Facebook page. Wow! They’re really fantastic, a great set. I especially like many of your pictures of Josh. He’s usually in the shadows in so many shots, you really did a great job of capturing that amazing confidence and stage swagger of his from their live shows. Again, lovely work!